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Like all Secret Files, Alex's Thoughts on Franz Kafka isn't found in the game itself. Instead it is unlocked through the "Buggin' Out (Episode Two)" Record, earned by finding and destroying all Insect Larvae in "Episode 2: Contemplation".

As I read Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," I can't help but feel that's it's an autobiographical account of the author's life, with Gregor Samsa representing Kafka himself.

Kafka worked an ordinary job and lived a very mundane life. Despite this he wrote fantastic works filled with madness and despair. His writing was his outlet as he toiled away at everyday life. But his family and friends couldn't understand his works, couldn't relate to him. I'm sure he must have felt lonely, and isolated from the rest of the world.

Kafka would eventually fall ill and spend his final days wasting away in a hospital bed. When his body experienced agonizing pain, his mind was tormented by fear: The fear of death, fear of the unknown, and the fear of isolation. It is this fear, and the emotions born from it, that made Kafka's works so rich, as he could critically examine madness and suffering and make these concepts the driving fore behind his works.

Very few of Kafka's numerous works were published while he lived, and upon his death he left them to a friend with the instructions to burn them, unread. Fortunately that friend saw the value of Kafka's legacy and preserved them for the future, ignoring Kafka's final request. Even today, Kafka's works continue to enchant us with their vivid depictions of fear.

It is that fear that drives us. Compels us. Fear is born from human instinct, and it's the basic emotion that keeps us alive. The fear of death...the fear of failure...fear of isolation and loneliness. Fear is the most powerful motivator. Those who control fear, control life itself.

Though his life came to an abrupt end, Kafka's name lives on through his works on fear and madness. He has obtained the greatest power man can hope to achieve--immortality.

I, too, will harness the power of fear, and infect this hellish world with it. And in the process I will be resurrected as one who has mastered fear. While Kafka merely lives on through his work, my work will help me live on.

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